Report: Mexican Police Chief Quits, Flees to U.S.

Oct. 20, 2010: Twenty-year-old Marisol Valles Garcia listens to a question during a news conference after her swearing-in ceremony as the new police chief of the border town of Praxedis G. Guerrero, near Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. (AP)

The 20-year-old female police chief of a drug-ravaged Mexican border town has quit after receiving death threats and fled to the United States, where she is seeking asylum, a relative told the New York Post Thursday.

Marisol Valles, a college student majoring in criminal justice, made international headlines last year when she accepted the job in October in Paxedis Guerro, a small town near Ciudad Juarez on the Rio Grande.

But Valles "received death threats from criminal groups that wanted to force her to work for them," her relative told the newspaper.

Valles, who fled with her young son, became the top law enforcement official in the Mexican border town after drug cartel members murdered the town's mayor and his son, scaring off all other applicants.

Erika Gandara, the 28-year-old police chief of nearby Guadalupe, was kidnapped last December. Her fate remains unknown, the Post reports.